Caroline fled the Lockwood cellar, not wanting to see Tyler die. So many friends had died, and she couldn't afford to lose more. She couldn't lose the boy who had helped her as she had helped him. Her eyes full of tears, her senses overloaded, she fell to the ground of the forest floor, too overcome to carry on.
She had lost them. Try as she might, she couldn't prevent the tears that came at the idea of Klaus's soft words and electric touch no longer being there, just as much as Tyler's solid presence not being there in Mystic Falls. All of Klaus' gestures, gone. All of Tyler's assurances, gone. Klaus' heated blue gaze, gone. The compliments of how she was full of light and beautiful and...strong...
Caroline stilled in her curled position, her forehead creasing.
'You're beautiful, you're strong, you're full of light.'
'You are strong, and you have a beautiful future ahead of you.'
The eloquent words had seemed unusual from Tyler, but she hadn't paid much attention at the time. She had just wanted to say goodbye in her way. And he had kissed her differently, adoringly, but she had merely assumed it was because it was their last kiss...or their first...
Caroline shot up. Screw it. She had to go back and see Tyler. She couldn't shake the idea forming in her head, and even if it wasn't true, she couldn't let him die alone in the dark.
Caroline sped back to the damp cellar, fear spreading in her belly at the pure silence surrounding the area. She stepped slowly down the stairs, hearing nothing.
Nothing but breathing, and a steady beating heart.
She rounded the corner to see Tyler standing with his back to the stairs, clearly not in pain, clearly not a wolf, not anything but Tyler. But there was just something distinctly not Tyler about him.
Caroline's imagination jumped to insane conclusions, and she recalled everything. Elijah's comment on Klaus' favourite 'trick', the sire bond, the bloodline, hybrids, witches, Alaric with another person in his body...
Caroline took the risk.
"Klaus?"
Tyler spun around with a look of recognition and surprise.
"Caroline," He breathed in such a familiar but unfamiliar manner. If his accent had been British, it would have made it completely identical.
Caroline was filled with joy for both Tyler being alive and also Klaus still existing in some form, then anger that he was inhabiting Tyler's body, then rage that he hadn't told her and had taken advantage of her lack of knowledge.
"Tell me what's going on, right now." She hissed, unbelievably conflicted.
"Why did you call me Klaus?" Not-Tyler asked, all too wide eyed and innocently confused.
"Don't try that with me. Just tell me what's going on."
He frowned slightly, before a smirk appeared on his face that gave the whole façade away. Caroline shuddered: it was just unnatural to see that on someone she thought she had known so well.
"What gave me away?"
"Everything." She snapped.
"You'll have to be more specific, love."
"Stop it. Just don't talk for a bit. Its...so unsettling."
He understood her predicament slightly, and he was quiet for a moment, giving her time to think.
"Whats happening? Is it just your spirit that's still here? Does that mean your body completely burned? What's going – "
Klaus-Tyler clamped his hand over her mouth, looking towards the entrance. Someone was walking to the steps. He sped them both to a dark alcove of the room, and kept one finger on Caroline's lips. She looked at him questioningly.
He mouthed to her, so he didn't alert the intruder to their presence and also didn't break her request for him to not speak.
'Don't move, don't talk. And don't come out till I tell you to. You understand?'
She nodded, and he looked at her for a beat till they heart the footsteps stop. Bonnie's voice rang out, and Caroline's eyes widened. Her friend did this?
"I know you're here."
Klaus-Tyler walked out of the shadows to face the witch.
"I must say, you really did that spell brilliantly." His face turned into a Klaus-like sneer. "I didn't think you had it in you."
"I did it to save my friends and my mother, Klaus. Not you." Bonnie said levelly, with a calmness that seemed to appear out of nowhere.
"The spirits wont be happy with you." He commented.
"The spirits don't get to tell me what to do anymore." She replied harshly. "I'm done getting pushed around by all of you. I did it because I wanted to."
He shrugged in acceptance, a move only Klaus – or Klaus' spirit in someone else's body – could really pull off.
"Then what's your next move?"
"Getting you out of my friends body."
"Trick is, how do we get me back into my rightful body?" He asked, and Bonnie's eyes narrowed.
"That's not so much my concern. For all I care, you can go to a dogs body."
He chuckled. "Ahh, if only you knew that I would stay alive in such a pathetic casing."
"You've survived for long enough in your previous pathetic casing." She said boldly.
Klaus-Tyler snarled under his breath, but knew well enough to hold back from any retaliation. For now. "Just find a way to get me back in my body and there'll be no more trouble."
"Your chest is burnt pretty badly, but not completely. Alaric closed the coffin lid, and it cut off oxygen to the fire. He was too intent on getting Rebekah after he got you."
Klaus-Tyler growled, and Bonnie set her lips in a straight line. "You are not going to avenge yourself or any of your siblings. Its better if everyone thinks you're dead. Surely that would fit in better with your plans."
"Still doesn't mean I can't kill your ex-history teacher."
Bonnie threw out her hand almost lazily to give him a typical witchy migraine, and he clutched his head.
"I wouldn't do that. Especially if you want my help, since I'm the one who saved you in the first place." She let the pain fade away and lowered her hand. "Now. Once I put you back in the right body and we make sure that Tyler is back in his own mind, you are going to leave Mystic Falls for a while. You wont attack any of my friends. Got that?"
"Loud and clear." He gritted, making an effort not to snarl.
"I need more than that."
"You have my word, I'll leave and not kill any of your friends." He raised his brows and looked innocently at her.
She looked back with suspicion, but nodded slowly. "If you don't comply, I'll just start this whole process over."
"Understood." Klaus-Tyler nodded, and Bonnie sighed.
"Right. You'll have to stay here tonight, and we'll sort out the bodies tomorrow. I'll be back before dawn." Without more of a goodbye, she left.
He waited till he couldn't hear her steps anymore, and turned to beckon Caroline out of hiding. She was already standing a few feet away.
"You were lying the whole time to her." She said coldly.
He blinked, surprised that she understood him so much, even with the confusion of a new body.
"Of course I was."
"Klaus...don't do this." She said, very nearly pleading, which wasn't her style at all.
"Why not? Your friends have tried to kill me on numerous occasions. You've tried too if I recall correctly." He shot, and she stiffened.
"And you haven't tried to kill us? You cant hang that over our heads for eternity."
"Yes I can. I could kill Bonnie. I never promised anything about her life. I could convince Rebekah to kill Elena and Matt, it would take very little to ask for that. I could get Elijah to kill the Salvatores, they do annoy him. Or if he's feeling too moral, I could just ask Kol, though I think it would be a kinder death at the hands of Elijah, don't you? And as for Tyler, once I have my body back, I will personally wring his neck. Your's too, if you'd like."
Caroline didn't let him gain a reaction from her, though her insides froze at the very real future he outlined for all of them.
Klaus-Tyler tilted his head. "Or I could do as Bonnie asked, and not harm anyone, and leave Mystic Falls. And you could join me."
Caroline had been waiting for the catch in that promise, and found it wasn't as displeasing as it should have been.
"Come now, love, it isn't so bad. Save your friends lives, save your life, and see the sights the world has to offer. Rome, Paris, Tokyo, London, Brazil, Rio, Stockholm, Sydney."
The picture he was painting was enticing for a girl who had spent almost two decades stuck in the one small town, who had never been on a plane or tasted foreign cuisine or experienced another culture or felt the sand and waves on an actual beach. And her friends lives would be spared, and the threat would be gone. She would be with the biggest monster out there, surely everyone would be safe.
"I'm still waiting for the catch. What do you get out of this?" She questioned, and he shook his head.
"Merely the pleasure of your company. No funny business from me." He sighed at her unmoved face. "I get a chance. And the moment that you want to leave, within reason, you may leave. I wont be chaining you to me. All I ask is that you take a chance." His words from earlier were changed, and she ignored how wrong they sounded coming from Tyler's mouth, just as she ignored how wrong the whole scenario was.
"So if I go with you, they'll be safe? They'll all be safe, even from your siblings? And you'll leave Tyler's body and return to yours?"
"You have my word." He said, and she scowled.
"You pulled that crap on Bonnie before."
He set his brows, his face stony and serious, a look that Tyler had never been capable of before in his own mind.
"I swear it. On my own life and my siblings. I swear."
Caroline took a deep breath. She'd save them all. Tyler too.
She nodded.
Klaus-Tyler swallowed his smile at her words before checking his wrist and realising that Tyler was not a wrist-watch type of man and checking his phone for the time instead.
"Bonnie will be back in around five hours. You should hunt, come back here, and try to get some rest. I'll be back shortly."
"What will you do?" Caroline asked, immedietly worried he would be doing a similar thing, worried about him murdering people. It was wrong enough in his body, in Tyler's it was just a violation.
"Fulfil my part of the bargain. Talk to Elijah, make sure your little gang is safe."
She took a long look at him, nodded, and left. She couldn't handle any more creepiness. It was just wrong to see him in Tyler's body. It was just plain wrong.